Psychological measurement and testing are vital processes in examining the nature of specific mental health issues faced by a patient and determining the available treatment options, the course of therapy, and other relevant concerns. However, the process of testing may be muddied significantly by the presence of biases associated with external or internal factors (Cohen et al., 2018). By allowing ethical, legal, socio-cultural, and personal bias issues into the diagnostic process, treatment, and application, one opens the door to multiple errors in managing a patient’s needs, which is why the presence of biases must be minimized by considering the presence of prejudices or lack of awareness sin a healthcare expert.
Although eradicating bases from the setting process completely is impossible, minimizing their influence on the test results is vital; otherwise, the diagnostic tools may be mismanaged, with the resulting failure to identify a specific mental health need of a patient rot eh nature of a mental health issue (Cohen et al., 2018). For instance, in the context of a healthcare environment, ethical biases, specifically, a healthcare practitioner’s unwillingness to comply with the principles of ethics such as beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice, is likely to lead to a direct harm made to a patient due to the neglect of their rights (Cohen et al., 2018). Furthermore, the lack of ethical considerations in addressing a patient’s needs will inevitably lead to a failure to provide adequate treatment and offer decent follow-up care, as well as infringe upon the rights of people with disabilities as established in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (Cohen et al., 2018). Therefore, ethical biases must be managed accordingly to ensure proper cafe and support.
Similarly, socio-cultural prejudices will cause the process of testing to be skewed significantly, leading to a misplaced diagnosis and a failure to provide effective treatment to a patient. Namely, culture and language barriers imply the inability to understand the socio-cultural and ethnic context in which the health issue under analysis has emerged (Cohen et al., 2018). Owing to the failure to learn about the causes of a health concern, removing it successfully will be nearly impossible.
Finally, one must acknowledge the drastic effect that personal bias issues have on the testing stage. Specifically, the presence of personal aversion to a patient is likely to lead to a misinterpretation of the test outcomes and the information provided by the patient in question (Cohen et al., 2018). As a result, the threat of discriminating against patients from diverse backgrounds and mismanaging the treatment process, thus, exacerbating the health issues faced by the patient intensifies (Cohen et al., 2018). The specified behavior is unacceptable based on the provisions of Title VII, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, sexuality, age, and other personal characteristics. Therefore, introducing strategies that would help remove personal biases from the therapeutic context is essential.
Similarly, legal biases also play a major role in the testing process, skewing the results and, therefore, affecting the diagnosis and the resulting treatment. Specifically, the absence of legal regulations for psychological testing in a range of states may create an environment where the rights of patients are violated; particularly, healthcare experts may be made privy to patients’ sensitive data without the latte’s consent (Cohen et al., 2018). The specified bias may affect the efficacy of the treatment process due to the patient’s distress and the loss of trust in the relationships between a patient and a healthcare provider (Cohen et al., 2018). Therefore, legal biases may also affect the outcomes of the testing process and, therefore, determine the subsequent failure of therapy.
Since testing biases define the outcomes of the diagnosis, treatment, and application processes, it is vital to identify and remove the specified issues from the target setting by promoting diversity and cultural competence in healthcare experts. The proposed solution will reduce the threat of test results being misinterpreted and a patient being administered a wrong therapy or treated. Thus, the quality of care will rise significantly, leading to a better management of patients’ needs.
References
Cohen, R. J., Swerdlik, M. E., & Phillips, S. M. (1996). Psychological testing and assessment: An introduction to tests and measurement (9th ed.). Mayfield Publishing Co.